Apparatus for forming metal



March 11, 1969 H. K. AMTHOR ET AL APPARATUS FOR FORMING METAL Griginal Filed July 20, 1964 Sheet INVENTORS HELMUT K.AMTHOR ALFRED L.CONTE ywz W L ATTORNEY March 11, 1969 AMTHQR ET AL 3,431,622

APPARATUS FOR FORMING METAL Original Filed July 20, 1964 Sheet 2 of 5 INVE HELMUT K. OR ALFRED L. E EVA 7) A TTORNE) March 11, 1969 AMTHQR ET AL 3,431,622

APPARATUS FOR FORMING METAL Original Filed July 20, 1964 Sheet of 5 INVENTORS HELMUT K. AMTHOR ALFRED L.JCONTE ATTORNEY 3,431,622 APPARATUS FOR FORMING METAL Helmut K. Amthor, Rocky River, and Alfred L. Conte,

North Olmsted, Ohio, assignors to Union Carbide Corporation, a corporation of New York Continuation of application Ser. No. 383,608, July 20,

1964. This application Oct. 16, 1967, Ser. No. 675,714 US. Cl. 29--204 7 Claims Int. Cl. H01m 1/02; B21d 5/14 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A tubular metal object is formed with a spring-like engaging capability by initially imparting thereto a degree of curvature corresponding to a diameter smaller than the diameter to which the object is ultimately formed, thereby enabling tight engagement by the object of a tubular item having a diameter equivalent to the ultimate diameter of the tubular object. This is accomplished by apparatus comprising a member having smaller-diameter and larger-diameter cylindrical surface portions and a resilient roller. The metal is first passed between the smaller-diameter portion and the resilient roller, and subsequently around the larger-diameter portion.

This is a continuation of application Ser. No. 383,608, filed July 20, 1964.

This invention relates to an apparatus for forming metal, and it refers more particularly to an apparatus which is capable of forming small and uniform tubular shaped objects and the like from metallic stock.

An outstanding apparatus for forming metal is disclosed in United States Patent No. 3,205,689 to M. R. Joseph issued Sept. 14, 1965, the assignee of the subject invention being also the assignee of the abovereferred to patent. The apparatus disclosed in the patent to Joseph comprises a pair of parallel rollers, one of which is provided with a rubber covering. The center to center distance between the rollers is adjusted such that the rubber covering is maintained under compression. When the rollers are driven and a thin, fiat metallic blank is fed therebetween, a tubular shaped object emerges therefrom without the leading edge reentering the zone between the rollers.

This apparatus is, however, not suitable for making Small tubes in the order of less than about one inch in diameter because of some distortion which is caused by the forces exerted on the leading edge of the formed blank as it strikes the skip bar and rides over the hard roller. Furthermore, in making even larger diameter tubes with this type of apparatus, it is extremely diflicult if not impossible to form the leading and trailing ends of the blank to the same curvature as the major portion of the blank. Although this condition may be suitable in some application as for example in making troughs, it is undesirable for a battery container where an undetectable butt joint with the two ends is desired.

Accordingly, the principal object of the invention is to provide an improved apparatus suitable for forming tubular shaped objects of various sizes including those having a diameter of less than about one inch.

Another object of the invention is to provide an improved apparatus which forms the leading and trailing ends of a blank to the same curvature as that of the major portion of the blank.

A further object of the invention is to provide an improved mandrel design which is provided with more rigidity in regard to deflection and which can form smaller diameter and longer tubes than those formed heretofore.

nited States Patent Yet another object of this invention is to provide an improved apparatus for making cylindrical cases for batteries which is relatively simple, inexpensive and which is readily adaptable for manual, semiautomatic or continuously automatic operation.

Still another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus which subsequent to forming the cylindrical tube, simultaneously ejects the tube from the mandrel and jackets a plurality of cells within the tubes.

Other objects, aims and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view partially broken away of the apparatus embodying the invention;

FIG. 2 is an enlarged fragmentary vertical sectional view of the rollers along the line 22 of FIG. 1, showing the leading end of a blank after it has been fed through the rollers;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged vertical sectional view similar to that of FIG. 2, but showing the blank after both the leading and trailing ends have been fed through the rollers;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a modified stationary mandrel which may be used in the apparatus of FIG. 1; and

FIG. 5 is a greatly enlarged sectional view of yet another modified stationary mandrel.

Referring to the drawing, and particularly to FIG- URES 1, 2 and 3, there is shown the apparatus of the invention which comprises a frame 10 supporting a large drive roller 12 having a resilient covering and a steel Core, respectively denoted as 14 and 15 in FIGURE 3, an upper movable platen 16 supporting a stationary mandrel 18, micrometer pressure and depth adjustment means 20 and a vertical pressure actuating means 22. A U-shaped pressure bridge 24 is alignedand guided by the upper movable platen 16 and communicates with the actuating means 22 by means of a ram 26 which extends from the pressure bridge 24 through the platen 16 to the actuating means 22. A ring 19 disposed about the ram 26 is used to stop the advance of the actuating means 22 to a predetermined set travel or stroke. The micrometer pressure and depth adjustment means 20 is akin to a vernier and is used to initially set up the pressure between the roller 12 and mandrel 18.

The stationary mandrel 18, as best shown in FIG. 2 has a diameter substantially the same as the inner diameter of the metal tube to be formed from a blank piece of stock material 30. The mandrel 18 is provided with a small hole 32 located off-center and parallel to its axis. The hole 32 houses a small diameter pressure roller 34 which is freely rotating. The pressure roller 34 preferably juts out beyond the periphery of the mandrel 18 as best shown in FIG. 2 so that it can be pressed into the covering 14 of the drive roller 12 without the mandrel 18 itself interfering with the driven roller 12. The mandrel 18, the pressure roller 34 and the drive roller 12 with its resilient covering 14 of rubber or rubber-like plastic material are preferably disposed parallel to each other. If desired, the mandrel 18 may be tilted slightly vertically with respect to the axis of the roller 12, thus the rate of bending will vary uniformly along the length of the metal blank to be formed thereby producing conical shapes.

The small pressure roller 34 may be supported in and by the mandrel 18 in a number of ways. For example, in FIGURE 5, the mandrel 36 is provided With a hole 38 parallel to the axis of the mandrel 36 and intersecting the surface thereof. The surface slot 40 formed thereby is smaller in width than the diameter of the pressure roller 42; thus the roller 42 when inserted in the hole 38 will project through the slot 40 but it cannot fall out through the slot 40. Lateral play is prevented by an end plug.

A method of retaining the pressure roller where the Width of the slot in the mandrel is greater than t:e diameter of the roller is to provide the end plugs (such as 44 in FIGURE 4) and the ends of the pressure roller with centered mating conical points and recesses in the manner of a lathe center and countersunk work piece.

The mandrel 46 shown in FIG. 4 is provided with a suitable ground relief such as flats 48 confined to the working length of the pressure roller 50. In this type of mandrel the grinding of a relief is necessary in order for the roller 50 to protrude from the working relieved zone since-the axial hole 52 provided in the mandrel 46 is not made to intersect the surface of the mandrel 46. In this construction, the pressure roller 50 projects beyond the flat or round adjacent surfaces 48 of the mandrel 46 the same distance as if the hole 52 intercepted the surface of the mandrel 46 thus providing a slot 51 for the roller to protrude therefrom.

It is desired for the roller (50, 34, etc.) to project at least a distance of about to about of an inch from the adjacent portions (working zone) of the mandrel; however, the device will function satisfactorily so long as in making the adjustment without a blank between the rollers the pressure roller is pressed into the soft face drive roller without the mandrel touching the drive roller. The ends of the hole 52 may be suitably plugged by dowellike pins 44 to retain the roller 50 in axial position. Only one end of the mandrel 46 need be drilled and suitably reamed so as to provide the hole 52 for the roller 50; thus, the roller 50 can be inserted therein from the open end which is subsequently plugged as described above.

It should be noted that the small pressure roller 34 rotates in the mandrel 18 as the large drive roller 12 advances the metal blank 30 between the roller 12 and mandrel 18 and thus forms the tube 54, as best shown in FIGURES 2 and 3. Of course, it should be apparent that the forming action will still occur whether or not the small pressure roller 34 rotates.

Another feature of the invention is the provision of combining the ejection operation of the tube 54 from about the mandrel 18 with the jacketing of a cell or plurality of cells. This is readily accomplished by simple means which are illustrated in FIG. 1. When a formed tube 54 is pushed off the free end 62 of the raised mandrel 18 by a stripper plate 64 positioned around the mandrel 18, which will be described more fully hereinafter, the formed tube 54 will slide from the mandrel 18 over a plurality of cells or cell 66 which is axially disposed and stationed in line with the mandrel 18 during ejection to provide a semifinished battery structure. A subsequent operation of curling over the open ends of the tube 54 about the cell or cells completes the battery jacketing operation. This can be conveniently done by utilizing another suitable apparatus.

The cell 66 may be brought to the apparatus by any suitable means, such as for instance by automatic conveyor belts or by hand and suitably fed into a feeding device such as that shown at 68 which device may be actuated by a spring (not shown) so that as a cell 66 is jacketed, it is pushed out of the way by the next cell 66 in line. The incomplete cell and jacket or tube assembly may then proceed to another location for final processing and finishing.

If desired, it may be advantageous to open the tube to a larger diameter while it is being ejected from the mandrel in order to facilitate slipping the tube over the cell. This is particularly so where a paper tube (insulator) has previously been placed over the cell. The mandrel 46 shown in FIG. 4 can accomplish this since it is provided with a novel flared end portion 70. As shown there, the diagonal dimension a is made larger than the dimension b which is the diameter of the mandrel. Therefore, when the tube is ejected from such a mandrel, the diameter of the tube will increase to as much as the difference between the mandrel diameter (dimension [2) and diagonal dimenson a.

The operational principles of the invention and the essential features of the process can be more readily understood from the following description when read in conjunction with FIGURE 1.

Flat metal blanks 30, with or without paper insulators attached, are supported in alignment by a vertical stacking frame 56 and are fed to the roller 12 and mandrel 18 by an automatically operated finger feeder 60 which feeds the blanks 30 one at a time from a uniformly aligned pile 58 and guides them into the work zone between the roller 12 and mandrel 18. The feeding of the metal blanks 30 to the roller 12 and mandrel 18 is properly synchronized with the operation of the stripper plate 64 and the position of the mandrel 18.

When a metal blank 30 is fed between the drive roller 12 and the small pressure roller 34 the blank 30 tends to assume the curvature of the roller 34 and therefore upon emerging from between the rollers 12 and 34 it wraps itself about mandrel 18. The free diameter of the resulting tube is a function of the amount of interference or penetration of pressure roller 34 into the resilient covered drive roller 12.

Before the metal blanks 30 are fed to the roller 12 and mandrel 18, the latter must be lowered to its contacting position with the roller 12. By adjusting the force of the mandrel 18 on the roller 12 higher than actually required of the tube to be formed, a slightly smaller radius on the leading end and the trailing end of the formed tube 54 is thus formed. The effect of this is to provide a smooth jacket seam to the cell container and to aid the snap-in of the cells at assembly. Although the tube 54 is completely formed after one pass of the blank 30 around the mandrel 18, additional rotation of the drive roller 12 may be employed if desired.

Just prior to ejecting the thus formed tube 54 off the mandrel 18, the upper movable platen 16 which supports the mandrel 18 by means of the stripper plate 64 and the presure bridge 24 is suitably raised so that the mandrel 18 and tube 54 formed thereon clear the roller 12. The pressure bridge 24 is also raised slightly above the roller 12 in order to clear the stripper plate 64. It should be obvious that the aperture 65 in the stripper plate 64 must be large enough to clear the largest cross-sectional area of the mandrel 18 and yet be able to push the formed tube 54 off same. At about the same time the cell 66 to be jacketed is suitably positioned in axial alignment with and nearly abutting the mandrel 18 such that when the tube 54 is shoved off the mandrel 18 by the action of the guided stripper plate 64, which is actuated by a suitable power cylinder (not shown) connected to the stripper plate 64, the tube 54 is pushed onto and around the cell 66 to provide a semi-finished battery. In order to facilitate the entrance of the tube 54 over the cell 66, it is desirable for the typical rounded cell bottom to be presented to the tube first. Of course, as was noted hereinabove, it may be preferred to spread the tube slightly by passing it over a (flared) end of a mandrel. A new cycle is started as the mandrel 18 is again lowered to its position adjacent to the roller 12.

As an example, the following are representative ranges of various operational parameters of the rollers and mandrel (scrolling apparatus) of the invention.

Diameter of small roller- 7 to inch.

Diameter of mandrel- A inch or over as determined by size of tube required (about 3 times the diameter of the small roller) Diameter of drive rollerapproximately 6 to 10 times the diameter of the small roller Thickness of resilient covering on drive roller- /z to inch Hardness of resilient covering on drive roller-60-75 Durometer Speed of drive roller100 to 175 rpm.

Although the apparatus of the invention is illustrated as having only one stationary mandrel, it should be realized that several mandrels with pressure rollers may be placed around the drive roller in order to produce greater quantities of tubes. If desired, the resilient covering of the drive roller can also be provided with ribs, slots, or a rough or knurled surface so as to improve the starting action and maintain a better grip and traction on the blanks.

Thus it can be seen that the present invention provides a simple and effective apparatus for the making of small, uniformly tubular shaped objects, and the like from flat sheet stock. The invention is also applicable where a continuous resilient belt is employed in lieu of the resilient covered drive roller. In this instance, the pressure rollers of several mandrels placed above the continuous resilient driven belt oppose corresponding hard backup rollers disposed beneath the innerside of the belt.

Accordingly, the foregoing is considered as illustrative only of the principles of the invention. Further, since numerous modifications and changes Will readily occur to those skilled in the art, it is not desired to limit the invention to the precise construction and operation shown and described, and therefore all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the invention as claimed.

We claim:

1. Apparatus for forming tubular objects comprising a rotative resilient cylindraceous member, a nonrotatively secured cylindraceous member comprising a nonrotatively secured larger-diameter cylindrical surface portion and a smaller-diameter cylindrical surface portion formed of nonresilient material effective to deform said resilient member when brought into engagement therewith, and means for feeding said blanks between said resilient member and said smaller-diameter portion thereby to impart to said blanks a degree of curvature corresponding to a diameter smaller than the diameter of said larger-diameter cylindrical surface portion and thereafter to feed said blanks to around said larger-diameter portion thereby to effect said tubular shape with a diameter commensurate with the diameter of said larger-diameter portion.

2. Apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said smaller-diameter cylindrical surface portion is provided by a freely rotative roller mounted on said cylindraceous member.

3. Apparatus according to claim 1 wherein the outer diameter of said resilient member is larger than the diameter of said larger-diameter cylindrical surface portion.

4. Apparatus according to claim 1 comprising means for adjusting the relative positioning between said cylindraceous member and said resilient member, thereby to adjust the curvature imparted to said blanks during formation. 5. Apparatus according to claim 2 wherein said roller 1S freely rotatively mounted within said cylindraceous member and has a surface portion extending radially beyond the surface of said cylindraceous member over an axial distance at least as great as the length of said blanks.

6. Apparatus according to claim 5 wherein said cylindraceous member is formed with fiat relief portions on its surface adjacent said roller for an axial length commensurate with the length over which said roller extends radially beyond the surface of said cylindraceous member, with the ends of said roller being supported within end sections of said cylindraceous member located beyond the terminations of said flat relief portions. 7. Apparatus for jacketing batteries comprising a rotative resilient roller, a nonrotatively secured nonresilient mandrel comprising a larger-diameter surface portion and a smaller-diameter surface portion positioned adjacent said roller, means for feeding battery jackets between said smaller-diameter surface portion and said roller and thereafter to around said larger-diameter surface portion thereby forming said jackets into a cylindrical shape having a diameter commensurate with the diameter of said larger-diameter surface portion, means for moving said mandrel into and out of engagement with said resilient roller including adjustable means for positioning said mandrel with said smaller-diameter surface portion pressing into and indenting said resilient roller an amount determined by the curvature to be imparted to said battery jacket by passage between said smallerdiameter surface portion and said roller, means for rotating said resilient roller to effect said jacket forming operation, means for feeding battery cells into axial alignment with said mandrel, means for radially spreading and axially ejecting said formed battery jackets from around said mandrel to around said cells thereby to provide a cell having a jacket therearound in spring-like engagement.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,047,073 7/1962 Fry 29-453 3,220,886 11/1965 Simonton 136132 2,454,282 11/1948 Johnson 72-169 2,394,019 2/1946 Socke 11312 2,315,535 4/1943 McCann l13113 FOREIGN PATENTS 478,678 2/1953 Italy.

MILTON S. MEHR, Primary Examiner.

US. Cl. X.R. 72169, 465; 29453 

